View Poll Results: What managed hosting provider do you recommend for mission critical servers?

Voters
54. You may not vote on this poll
  • Wiredtree

    8 14.81%
  • iweb.com

    1 1.85%
  • razorblue

    2 3.70%
  • axishost

    1 1.85%
  • dedicatednow

    4 7.41%
  • peer1

    3 5.56%
  • liquidweb

    10 18.52%
  • datapipe

    0 0%
  • inetu

    2 3.70%
  • navisite

    0 0%
  • rackspace

    11 20.37%
  • other

    19 35.19%
Multiple Choice Poll.
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Results 1 to 25 of 29
  1. #1

    Which managed hosting provider provides the best service for mission critical servers

    I wasnt happy with the poll I posted in another thread, too few options.

    Just want to throw up a better poll.

    Also including rackspace in this one and recasting it as just, who do you like the most? Perhaps rackspace is #1... maybe not...

  2. #2
    Also allowing multiple selections as if someone wants to recommend more than one, that's fine.

  3. #3
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    I don't know. If I wouldn't have the knowledge, I'd probably be tempted to hire someone to manage my mission critical server for me with all the critical task being done by them. I'd have to have absolute trust in this company first per se
    I have a BE NICE policy. Well, at least for those who are nice to me as well....

    Picking on noobs doesn't mean you aren't one of them.

  4. #4
    Hosting will be anyone but the mission critical situation can only be handled by the server provider which one has the reliable backup source and plan restore procedure which smother the restore quickly and perfect.

    The main part of every reliable hosting should be Good & reliable backup policy, the application i prefer for this is r1Soft.

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    Last edited by bear; 12-24-2010 at 09:03 AM.

  5. #5
    As long as the poll has multiply choises I would say liquidweb and Wiredtree are pretty good with that

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rebel-Alex View Post
    Actually,

    This may sound a little bit cliche, but ...
    No, this is not a cliche, but something REALLY corny like "Kansas in August" If you're really THAT good, why don't you let the customers do the talking instead?

    As for the 100% uptime, I don't think even the biggest outsourcing companies (HP, IBM and the like) guarantee that. I think the most they guarantee is 99.99% or something which boils down to a couple of hours of outage every year. Of course they can be sued by their customers if things go wrong, but still.

    Also, we have a saying in my native language which translates to "self-praise stinks". Basically it means that it's not a good idea to praise yourself instead of having others praise you instead.
    Last edited by CoolKoon; 01-09-2011 at 01:17 PM. Reason: a small addendum
    I have a BE NICE policy. Well, at least for those who are nice to me as well....

    Picking on noobs doesn't mean you aren't one of them.

  7. #7
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    Many of those providers are not in the same league, so there really is no way to compare them and say one is better than the next. Budget is a big factor. One may be better but may be 5 times more expensive than the other.

    It's like asking what is the most reliable car and putting on the list Toyota and Bentley, both are fine but are not comparable since they are in different classes.

    Also, as a matter of fact, you have to check the SLA's on each one to see which ones really do offer mission critical services. Some providers specifically say not for mission critical or non-fault tolerant needs, and this is because of liability purposes.
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  8. #8
    I agree with the above post, and in addition to SLA's "Managed Hosting" to company A might be very different to company B in terms of what's included, how everything is handled, how far they'll go with support requests, etc.

    I would group the following companies together:

    -=Premium Managed Hosting=-
    (this means the providers will offer a very comprehensive solution and go pretty far with a request - beyond simple automated tasks. You can also reliably host complex environments at these places which they can even design for you with recommendations for the most part. Things included should be advanced monitoring that ties into critical business processes, backup and recovery, clustering, advanced high availability, load balancing, complex troubleshooting, etc.)
    Rackspace
    INetU
    NaviSite
    DataPipe

    -=Managed Hosting=-
    (these are the quality but more basic hosting firms. Good uptime, good customer service, good support but they only go so far as most of what they include is automated and break/fix as opposed to very proactive - and pricing should reflect this. i.e. Liquid Web should cost less than Rackspace or INetU but they also include less. Things included might be basic monitoring and troubleshooting if say IIS stops working)
    Peer1
    Liquid Web

    -=Basic hosting, VPS, Dedicated, low cost, etc.=-
    (this is self explanatory, but these would be providers where they offer a very low price for a very basic service. A sign of this is they will offer a variety of hosting like VPS, Dedicated, and Managed with managed maybe just including basic break/fix with patching.
    Wired Tree
    iWeb.com
    razor blue
    axishost
    dedicated now

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by rich4114 View Post
    I agree with the above post, and in addition to SLA's "Managed Hosting" to company A might be very different to company B in terms of what's included, how everything is handled, how far they'll go with support requests, etc.

    I would group the following companies together:

    -=Premium Managed Hosting=-
    (this means the providers will offer a very comprehensive solution and go pretty far with a request - beyond simple automated tasks. You can also reliably host complex environments at these places which they can even design for you with recommendations for the most part. Things included should be advanced monitoring that ties into critical business processes, backup and recovery, clustering, advanced high availability, load balancing, complex troubleshooting, etc.)
    Rackspace
    INetU
    NaviSite
    DataPipe

    -=Managed Hosting=-
    (these are the quality but more basic hosting firms. Good uptime, good customer service, good support but they only go so far as most of what they include is automated and break/fix as opposed to very proactive - and pricing should reflect this. i.e. Liquid Web should cost less than Rackspace or INetU but they also include less. Things included might be basic monitoring and troubleshooting if say IIS stops working)
    Peer1
    Liquid Web

    -=Basic hosting, VPS, Dedicated, low cost, etc.=-
    (this is self explanatory, but these would be providers where they offer a very low price for a very basic service. A sign of this is they will offer a variety of hosting like VPS, Dedicated, and Managed with managed maybe just including basic break/fix with patching.
    Wired Tree
    iWeb.com
    razor blue
    axishost
    dedicated now
    No offense but I wouldn't consider Wiredtree a basic or cheap host. They are at least in the same class as liquid web. And wiredtree dose offer application level hosting (complex hosting solutions.) Also all of wiredtrees services are full managed. I think in general your list is flawed. Several of the companies you picked apart offer higher levels of service than you describe and can offer complex solutions. And really RackSpace is not that impressive. Expensive maybe but that's about it.

    I have nothing to gain by saying this but I don't think this a accurate list.
    Last edited by ShaunH; 01-14-2011 at 10:49 AM.

  10. #10
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    I agree with most of the above post - many on the list are not in the same league, some are budget and some are premium, having said that they are some good budget providers around it all comes back to "you get what you pay for"

    I noticed may people on the poll selected others, who might the others be?
    Respectfully,
    Mr. Terrence

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by ShaunH View Post
    No offense but I wouldn't consider Wiredtree a basic or cheap host. They are at least in the same class as liquid web. And wiredtree dose offer application level hosting (complex hosting solutions.) Also all of wiredtrees services are full managed. I think in general your list is flawed. Several of the companies you picked apart offer higher levels of service than you describe and can offer complex solutions. And really RackSpace is not that impressive. Expensive maybe but that's about it.

    I have nothing to gain by saying this but I don't think this a accurate list.
    WiredTree starts at $44/Month. Typically companies who offer that type of service don't get into the more complex or compliance oriented hosting deals. Not saying they're a bad service at all, just that it's in-line with the budget, basic, VPS type of offerings.

    Which ones would you switch around in the 3 groups I put up there? It sounds like you'd put Wired Tree in the 2nd group?

  12. #12
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    Personally I wouldn't trust Wiredtree for anything remotely critical, even on their non-budget managed Hybrid service with "the power and reliability of enterprise-class servers". Had a 32 hour outage last month which they refer to as an "inconvenience"... (ticket YJT-657703 amongst others refers).

    I've migrated to ServInt with a rsync'd failover backup with VPSLatch.

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by rich4114 View Post
    WiredTree starts at $44/Month. Typically companies who offer that type of service don't get into the more complex or compliance oriented hosting deals. Not saying they're a bad service at all, just that it's in-line with the budget, basic, VPS type of offerings.

    Which ones would you switch around in the 3 groups I put up there? It sounds like you'd put Wired Tree in the 2nd group?
    I think your list is misleading I'm not saying the providers aren't good but your put them into a list that's rather arbitrary. I think it dose more harm than good. So in other words I wouldn't put them in a list like that. Unless I had talked to them or was sure on what they offered.

    And for reference

    http://www.wiredtree.com/supportserv...management.php

    But as I said if I really needed Critical 5 9's up time and support I would shop around.

    Quote Originally Posted by benz1 View Post
    Personally I wouldn't trust Wiredtree for anything remotely critical, even on their non-budget managed Hybrid service with "the power and reliability of enterprise-class servers". Had a 32 hour outage last month which they refer to as an "inconvenience"... (ticket YJT-657703 amongst others refers).

    I've migrated to ServInt with a rsync'd failover backup with VPSLatch.
    Its frustrating but almost any host will have down time unless you have a highly complex / redundant solution. Even then you may have down time.

    Also people who want complex hosting might want to check these guys out. They appear worth a look.

    http://www.firehost.com/
    Last edited by ShaunH; 01-15-2011 at 03:55 AM.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by ShaunH View Post
    I think your list is misleading I'm not saying the providers aren't good but your put them into a list that's rather arbitrary. I think it dose more harm than good. So in other words I wouldn't put them in a list like that. Unless I had talked to them or was sure on what they offered.

    And for reference



    But as I said if I really needed Critical 5 9's up time and support I would shop around.



    Its frustrating but almost any host will have down time unless you have a highly complex / redundant solution. Even then you may have down time.

    Also people who want complex hosting might want to check these guys out. They appear worth a look.

    [url]firehost.com
    I think a pretty good rule of thumb is you get what you pay for. Generally places that put pricing all over their front page are going to be more commodity based servicing anyone who comes looking for hosting.

    I'm more familiar with the first two groups than the bottom two to be honest, so I would recommend you base your opinion on reputation, references, uptime reports, and if you're really shopping - how they handle the pre-sales process.

    A company like Rackspace is generally among the most expensive but many serious organizations running large complex environments who need to rely on their host to maintain things and ensure high levels of security, performance, and responsiveness or pro-activeness if a problem comes up.

    I strongly disagree with your statement, all hosting companies will not have downtime unless you have a highly available environment. Server downtime is one thing, but downtime at the network or datacenter level is beyond your control no matter how much you buy. Look at a third party like Netcraft.com - they rank 40 something providers by network uptime and response time. Find the hosts that are in the top 10 most often and offer managed hosting as their primary offering. Those are going to be the most reliable and then it comes down to what they provide from a service perspective.

    It's easy for all hosting companies to say the same things on their websites and on their SLA's. Talk to people who've actually used these places and use third party sites like Netcraft then determine who has what.

    Be sure to checkout the uptime archives to see who is in the top 10 often and you'll see INetU, DataPipe as the most frequent with Rackspace being in there quite often as well. Some of the providers on this list don't even come up.

    As for Fire Host, they seem to be coming on the scene a little bit. They say all of the right things but same goes for them - find out about them from third parties and references and see how the sales process goes. If it's a "I need 4 servers" and then they just provide you a quote with marketing jargon - it's a good sign that's how the service side would go too.

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by rich4114 View Post
    I think a pretty good rule of thumb is you get what you pay for. Generally places that put pricing all over their front page are going to be more commodity based servicing anyone who comes looking for hosting.

    I'm more familiar with the first two groups than the bottom two to be honest, so I would recommend you base your opinion on reputation, references, uptime reports, and if you're really shopping - how they handle the pre-sales process.

    A company like Rackspace is generally among the most expensive but many serious organizations running large complex environments who need to rely on their host to maintain things and ensure high levels of security, performance, and responsiveness or pro-activeness if a problem comes up.

    I strongly disagree with your statement, all hosting companies will not have downtime unless you have a highly available environment. Server downtime is one thing, but downtime at the network or datacenter level is beyond your control no matter how much you buy. Look at a third party like Netcraft.com - they rank 40 something providers by network uptime and response time. Find the hosts that are in the top 10 most often and offer managed hosting as their primary offering. Those are going to be the most reliable and then it comes down to what they provide from a service perspective.

    It's easy for all hosting companies to say the same things on their websites and on their SLA's. Talk to people who've actually used these places and use third party sites like Netcraft then determine who has what.

    Be sure to checkout the uptime archives to see who is in the top 10 often and you'll see INetU, DataPipe as the most frequent with Rackspace being in there quite often as well. Some of the providers on this list don't even come up.

    As for Fire Host, they seem to be coming on the scene a little bit. They say all of the right things but same goes for them - find out about them from third parties and references and see how the sales process goes. If it's a "I need 4 servers" and then they just provide you a quote with marketing jargon - it's a good sign that's how the service side would go too.
    Rackspace doesn't impress me with the prices they charge they better give me anything I want and more.

    All I'm saying is Backspace isn't the end all be all.

  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by rich4114 View Post
    I agree with the above post, and in addition to SLA's "Managed Hosting" to company A might be very different to company B in terms of what's included, how everything is handled, how far they'll go with support requests, etc.

    I would group the following companies together:

    -=Premium Managed Hosting=-
    (this means the providers will offer a very comprehensive solution and go pretty far with a request - beyond simple automated tasks. You can also reliably host complex environments at these places which they can even design for you with recommendations for the most part. Things included should be advanced monitoring that ties into critical business processes, backup and recovery, clustering, advanced high availability, load balancing, complex troubleshooting, etc.)
    Rackspace
    INetU
    NaviSite
    DataPipe

    -=Managed Hosting=-
    (these are the quality but more basic hosting firms. Good uptime, good customer service, good support but they only go so far as most of what they include is automated and break/fix as opposed to very proactive - and pricing should reflect this. i.e. Liquid Web should cost less than Rackspace or INetU but they also include less. Things included might be basic monitoring and troubleshooting if say IIS stops working)
    Peer1
    Liquid Web

    -=Basic hosting, VPS, Dedicated, low cost, etc.=-
    (this is self explanatory, but these would be providers where they offer a very low price for a very basic service. A sign of this is they will offer a variety of hosting like VPS, Dedicated, and Managed with managed maybe just including basic break/fix with patching.
    Wired Tree
    iWeb.com
    razor blue
    axishost
    dedicated now

    Rackspace will NOT handle anything complex. They can't even handle something as simple as a JBoss installation. If you have something out the ordinary, Rackspace is seriously lacking. I do consulting for many of Rackspace's customers. The simplest tasks they have difficulty with.

    Also Razorblue is in the wrong category.
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  17. #17
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    Rich I was thinking more about your posts. And I think your falling into the trap of expecting the more expensive the service and more marketing cred someone has the more positive the hosting experience will be. And really if someone wanted something complex. Their probably going to contact the company instead of order off their website. I'm all for you get what you pay for. But it doesn't hurt to make sure you not getting sucked in by hype either.

    Also just to point this out. No matter how well engineered a DC is and no matter what you plan for your will have outages its just the way things go.

    Rackspace had a multi hour outage A year(s) ago. When someone hit a power pole down the road from them. It happens to everyone.
    Last edited by ShaunH; 01-15-2011 at 02:16 PM.

  18. #18
    Oh I 100% agree, Rackspace is definitely not the end all be all. In fact over the past few years, I think they've lost a little bit of focus based on what I hear their customers and ex-customers say.

    I went on a little bit of a tangent there and used them as an example because they're a big name, but the point I was trying to make is there's a ton of hosting companies that on the surface to someone who does not know the industry - will all seem the same but they're all so different once you begin peeling away the layers of the onion so to speak.

    And yes, we're talking about computers at the end of the day, they will all fail. Where the difference comes is how will each hosting company deal with something like that. Some will take a "sorry, that's the way the cookie crumbles" approach and others will feel more invested in their customers and sensitive to anything effecting their clients business both positively and negatively.

  19. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by rich4114 View Post
    I agree with the above post, and in addition to SLA's "Managed Hosting" to company A might be very different to company B in terms of what's included, how everything is handled, how far they'll go with support requests, etc.

    I would group the following companies together:

    -=Premium Managed Hosting=-
    (this means the providers will offer a very comprehensive solution and go pretty far with a request - beyond simple automated tasks. You can also reliably host complex environments at these places which they can even design for you with recommendations for the most part. Things included should be advanced monitoring that ties into critical business processes, backup and recovery, clustering, advanced high availability, load balancing, complex troubleshooting, etc.)
    Rackspace
    INetU
    NaviSite
    DataPipe

    -=Managed Hosting=-
    (these are the quality but more basic hosting firms. Good uptime, good customer service, good support but they only go so far as most of what they include is automated and break/fix as opposed to very proactive - and pricing should reflect this. i.e. Liquid Web should cost less than Rackspace or INetU but they also include less. Things included might be basic monitoring and troubleshooting if say IIS stops working)
    Peer1
    Liquid Web

    -=Basic hosting, VPS, Dedicated, low cost, etc.=-
    (this is self explanatory, but these would be providers where they offer a very low price for a very basic service. A sign of this is they will offer a variety of hosting like VPS, Dedicated, and Managed with managed maybe just including basic break/fix with patching.
    Wired Tree
    iWeb.com
    razor blue
    axishost
    dedicated now
    I don't like to dig up old threads, but, interesting. You obviously know very little about us and what we do

    Low prices and break fix certainly don't come to mind...
    █ Dan Kitchen | Technical Director | Razorblue
    █ ddi: (+44) (0)1748 900 680 | e: dkitchen@razorblue.com
    █ UK Intensive Managed Hosting, Clusters and Colocation.
    █ HP Servers, Cisco/Juniper Powered BGP Network (AS15692).

  20. #20
    I'll admit Dan, I don't know much about Razorblue at all. My opinion is just based on a quick visit to your website since someone else listed your firm. Could you share how you differ from some of the others?

  21. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by rich4114 View Post
    I'll admit Dan, I don't know much about Razorblue at all. My opinion is just based on a quick visit to your website since someone else listed your firm. Could you share how you differ from some of the others?
    I'm not here to sell, so I don't intend to go into lots of detail about what we do, but it's certainly not budget, we are a managed services company end to end with our own network. Our typical client is either a government body or turns over at least £10m annually. Probably quite similar to the business you work for in all honesty.
    █ Dan Kitchen | Technical Director | Razorblue
    █ ddi: (+44) (0)1748 900 680 | e: dkitchen@razorblue.com
    █ UK Intensive Managed Hosting, Clusters and Colocation.
    █ HP Servers, Cisco/Juniper Powered BGP Network (AS15692).

  22. #22
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    love the fact that after this big list -- Others is #1 choice
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  23. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by The_Dominator View Post
    love the fact that after this big list -- Others is #1 choice
    you made my day
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  24. #24
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    Looks like everyone has a different opinion on this issue. Cost, service, backups, support. My thoughts are each and every one is very important and if we are talking mission critical then you "must" find a solution that offers all of them. Other was my vote.
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  25. #25
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    There are HUGE differences when you're comparing hosts. You'd have to compare Apples and Apples and Oranges with Oranges.

    You can't suddenly go comparing BurstNET with RackSpace. They are not in the same league.

    Here's a more updated list, I guess.

    Premium Solution Providers
    (Solution Providers not only offer you Hosting but also solutions to your needs. Their prices are totally NOT cheap but at the end of the day, you will be happy that you paid their prices because every call or every ticket that you log will be handled by a TRUE professional and I am sure their SLA's are made to cater to the needs of their clients. You will sleep soundly without a worry even if your stuff is Mission Critical and you go with them.)
    INetU
    Voxel
    Rackspace*
    Razor Blue
    NaviSite

    Managed Server Provider
    (They are more a provider of servers and they will help you to manage the server. Cheaper than the list above, they tend to not be the ones to find if you have a Multi-Million dollar project or if you are looking for Solutions or etc. Basically they will handle your server needs but they are not total Solution Providers)
    Peer1
    LiquidWeb
    WiredTree
    DedicatedNOW
    LayeredTech

    Budget Server Provider
    (They basically provide cheap servers, unmanaged services and etc. They do not really take Multi-Million Dollar Projects and they do not provide solutions to anybody. They are there to fight to get customers and if you have problems, they will help a little but for the most part, you are on your own. Their SLA are FIXED and will speak tons if you really look in there. No flexible SLA and will not design to cater to the needs of their customers.)
    iWeb
    100TB
    BurstNET
    VolumeDrive
    Hetzner
    OVH
    Hivelocity
    Softlayer**

    Those are the current players in the market which I could think of at the top of my head. I am not listing out Resellers and etc of coz. Just the big ones in the market.

    *For some reason, people usually go up the ladder but it seems that Rackspace is doing worse and worse now-a-days. I'm not too sure where they stand anymore.
    **Softlayer has some foothold in the Solutions Provider part as well but less concentrated there. More on budget servers and etc. They do have Big projects as well.

    If there's any others which I left out, I am sorry... I am totally not really thinking and I'm HUNGRY too (at the time I wrote this). I can't think when I am hungry.
    Last edited by aodat2; 05-10-2011 at 11:31 PM.
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